Nerve
by Air Guitar Pixie
Summary: Alternate version of 4/15 Death Takes A Holiday. A tortured-Sammy prompt from sammysmissingshoe and Kas3y...and on to the actual summary. Alistair takes Sam as leverage. What on earth could go wrong? T because guys. Torture fic. Uh. Yeah. Genre is h/c but there's more hurt than comfort, oops.


A/N: _Hi there. Oneshot written for sammysmissingshoe and Kas3y, two awesome people. Basically...this has pretty much no actual plot. It's just an alternate version of "Death Takes A Holiday." So...enjoy. And yeah, I fence, so I know about the fencing stuff...the other bit about nerves et cætera is from the internet. T because. Uh. It's a torture fic. From a torture prompt. Don't like? I'm not asking ya to read :)_

_-Jaq_

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"And, just for leverage, I think I had better take Sammy too. Wouldn't want you to try and do something, Dean. It might end...badly for your brother."

Dean's eyes widened and he started to step to the side, but not fast enough. Sam gasped and insrinctively flinched back a little as Alistair shot Dean full of rocksalt and his brother disappeared.

"Not so ferocious without your powers, eh Sammy?" the demon sneered, keeping his shotgun trained on the place where Dean would return.

"I'm going to kill you," Sam said, but the threat was empty and he knew it. Alistair had already broken the seal, and (accordimg to him at least) killed Pamela. There wasn't really a way for him to return to his body, now.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk...now, really, I'm insulted. You think _you_ could kill _me_? Even with your mojo, you're no match for me. But I think I'll have some fun. After all, I did promise to take you as leverage."

Dean popped back up, wincing, but another pump and fire and he was gone again.

"Goodbye for now. I'll see you very soon." Alistair winked and disappeared.

Sam didn't know what that meant, but it sounded bad. He grimaced at the iron chains, and reached out.

The resounding jolt of pain he recieved was enough to make him very averse to trying to get out that way. It was like there was an electric fence- even above and below the chain was painful. Sam had no doubt that, in his ghostly form, it would be pretty damn near (if not entirely) impossible to escape from the trap.

A few seconds later, Dean popped back up again. "Sammy! Sam, you're still here- _damn_, rock salt hurts like a bitch- I thought Alistair was going to...ya know, take you as leverage or whatever?"

Sam shrugged.

Dean grimaced. "He's...not a good guy. Maybe he messed up."

Sam shrugged again. He doubted it.

"Hey, maybe I can crack the wall and we can get out that way."

A few minutes passed in a tense silence, in which Dean stared in concentration at the wall. It stayed very solid and very sturday.

"I don't think-" Sam began, when suddenly he was somewhere else.

Somewhere else not very pleseant. Sam had, unfortuently, been the victim of enough ropes that he knew when they were tight enough and when he could pop a wrist and get out of them. And whomever had tied him up had done a great job of it. He was stripped to the waist, and tied by his ankles, wrists, and waist.

"Well, well, looks like dearest Pamela wasn't lying after all. That really is how you bring back someone from astral projection."

Sam strained his neck, but Alistair was standing directly behind the table (or some other flat raised surface) he was tied to, and he couldn't see the demon.

He could hear the quiet, metallic sound of a knife scraping just next to his ear, though. Turning his head, he saw the weapon and clenched his throat, wishing he hadn't.

The blade was rusty, and serrated at the base, with flecks of almost-rust spots that Sam knew were most definitely not rust spots. It looked pretty deadly, though. Pretty sharp, too. And very, very painful.

"Your brother was my star student, you know. Down in Hell," Alistair commented in a bored tone. "I wonder if you'd be any good." He stepped into Sam's range of vision and looked at his knife with apparent interest.

Sam's heartbeat quickened. He closed his eyes, concentrating with all his might on the demon in front of him. All of his muscles stood rigid, and he began to get a throbbing headache with the effort he was exerting.

Alistair laughed as if Sam was a petulant five year old who had just told a joke. "You're going to give yourself a hemorrhage if you don't stop soon. I thought I told you already- you just don't have the juice. Not for me. Plus, did you know that you look constipated when you do that?"

Leaning forward with the knife, Alistair continued talking. "The key with torture," he said, almost delicately placing the blade on Sam's collarbone, "is to go slowly. Relish each scream as it fades into the next. Too fast, and the best part's already over." He pressed the blade down, and blood began seeping out of the cut.

Sam gritted his teeth but remained silent. He had given up on trying to kill Alistair or even exorcise him- it would only make Sam weaker.

Slowly, Alistair dragged the the blade towards Sam's left shoulder, digging it deeper as he did so. Sam shouted, the cry leaping from his throat. It hurt. It hurt so, so badly, the clenched muscles and sinews being torn vicsiously apart.

Suddenly, the blade hit something and Sam screamed so loudly that he was sure the entire country could hear him. Waves of pain crashed over him again and again, and Sam screamed again. Louder, if that was possible. Beads of sweat broke out all over his body, and tears formed in his eyes. He took shallow, ragged breaths, unable to concentrate on anything but the unbearable, fiery agony in his shoulder.

"Scream all you want. My sigils make this room soundproof. By the way, that's your axillery nerve I just brushed up against," Alistair said with a sadistic smile. He moved the knife slightly, rubbing against the torn flesh and touching the nerve ending again. A new wave of pain broke over Sam. "Just a touch," Alistair continued, "and your pain sensory receptors are almost overloaded. In classical fencing, this nerve was the main target area. Feels good, doesn't it?"

Sam couldn't even groan in response. His breathing was fast and irregular, and he was biting his lip so hard that it bled to stop himself from screaming.

Alistair withdrew the knife, and the pain lessened a franction. "I like to take a break here and let people feel that pain before we continue. There's one more thing..."

Sam's eyes were shut so tightly that he couldn't have seen the demon even if Alistair had been inside his range of vision. Suddenly, a river of fire seemed to flow down the wound, and he couldn't stop a scream from ripping out of his mouth. The tears finally spilled over, dripping fast and thick down his face.

"Lemon juice," commented Alistair in that satisfied way he had. "Simple, but effective. If it makes you feel better, it's organic."

Sam didn't care. He didn't care about anything but the pain, and Alistair was only on his left shoulder. He just wanted to black out, to blissfully fall into unconsciousness, but he couldn't even seem to do that.

Next, Alistair picked up a short knife, the blade curved on one side. He showed this again to Sam, who saw it briefly through tears that he was trying desperately to blink back.

Alistair placed the knife on the edge of the wound, and, taking hold of the flap of sliced skin, began to peel it as one would paint from a wall. He did it slowly, separating Sam's skin from his muscles in long, even strips diagonally down his chest.

"Such a nice tattoo you've got there, Sammy," Alistair said nonchalantly. "It'd be a real shame if I were to cut it out, wouldn't it..."

Sam's screams echoed in the room. He could feel rivulets of blood trickling down his chest from the wounds. Some of the lemon juice had spilled into the area where Alistair was currently peeling off Sam's skin, and it hurt like nothing ever had.

His throat was actually starting to hurt from the screaming. And, amomg everything else, his nose itched.

"I like to do this next part with a blindfold," Alistair explained, pulling out a piece of black cloth.

Sam's eyes widened, and he threw his head back and forth, trying to avoid the inevitable. Alistair held his head down with superhuman strength, tying the blindfold so tightly that it hurt. Everything about Alistair hurt, from the way his words grated against one's ear to the way his fingernails, long and unkept, scratched at Sam's face while placing on the blindfold.

Sam's eyelids were pressed closed by the blindfold, and he could hear the blood pumping in his ears. Faster and faster it pumped, as he picked up the slight sounds of Alistair preparing to do...something.

Sudden tiny pinpricks of pain exploded into being on Sam's right- and otherwise untouched- shoulder. They dug deeper, and tore at the muscle below.

"I'm going to do the same thing I did to your other shoulder, but I'm going to come at it a different way. That was precise, this is not."

Sounds of pure agony ripped through Sam's throat as the demon thrust some blunt object through his shoulder. Combined with the still very-tangible pain of his other shoulder, Sam began to see black spots.

There was a syringe, or a needle of some sort, inserted into Sam's neck, and the black spots disappeared. "Adreanaline," Alistair explained.

Now he couldn't even black out. Sam's back tried to arch against the pain, but the movement caused more pressure on his shoulders, anhe laid flat, each exhale a ragged cry.

"And the best thing, Sammy, is that with that much nerve and muscle damage, you won't be able to move your arms for a few weeks. Good luck stopping us now."

Sam could only cry aloud, tears staining the blindfold.

Then came more lemon juice, flushing out the blood. Sam screamed, his voice growing hoarse and his thoat dry and raw.

Suddenly, Alistair screamed, and someone violently ripped the blindfold off.

Sam winced and blinked in the sudden light, but he recognized Dean standing over him.

"Sam? Crap, crap, Sammy-" Dean leaned over, untying Sam's bonds.

Sam still wanted to scream his lungs out, but he managed to ask how Dean was restored to his body.

"Pamela wasn't completely dead," he said shortly. "She is now." Dean finished undoing the ropes. "Do you think you can stand?"

Sam shrugged. Then, he shouted, because shrugging was very painful.

"I'm gonna take that as a no. Cas just nabbed Alistair, but I don't think he's keen to come back," Dean said, a scowl on his face.

"Ah!" Sam shouted, tears still leaking down his face.

Dean helped his brother sit up, not caring how much blood got on his jacket. "These aren't too bad," he said upon examining them. Looking down, he added, "the axillery was Alistair's favorite.

"But," he continued, "that doesn't matter. We can get Cas, a doctor, something, but you're gonna be okay."

Sam nodded, face tight, and made a resolution to ask Ruby for more. Because next time Sam met Alistair, he was going to make damn sure he was ready.

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A/N 2:_ reviews are literally the best, so if you enjoyed, please review! (also. for those of you who can actually write torture stuff. Please tell me what I did right and what I need to work on.) Thanks for reading and have a great day (or night. Timezones are weird.)_

_-Jaq_


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